‘Star Trek’ 50th Anniversary To Be Commemorated With New U.S. Postal Stamps

With the 50th anniversary of Star Trek coming in 2016, the U.S. Post Office has unveiled four new stamps for 2016 commemorating the iconic television series that launched several successor shows and two hit film franchises. Each of the four stamps celebrates an iconic image from the original series, including the transporter, the Vulcan salute usually accompanied by the motto “Live long, and prosper,” the symbol for Star Fleet that emblazoned the chests of the series’ uniforms, and of course the starship Enterprise. The first two are at the top, and the second two can be seen below.

Originally airing on NBC from 1966 to 1969, Star Trek was cancelled after its third season only to become an enormous cult hit in syndication during the 1970s. The series’s aesthetic, in many ways reflective of the late 60s, became pop culture touchstones, which makes the clearly-1960s inspired color and design of these stamps particularly gratifying for fans (like myself). The franchise’s 50th anniversary will also be accompanied by a new film from Paramount, the Justin Lin-helmed Star Trek Beyond which teleports into theaters July 22.

Meanwhile, Star Trek isn’t the only space-themed stamps beaming into us mailboxes in 2016. The USPS has also unveiled a tribute to NASA’s New Horizons mission, which saw the space probe pull off a successful fly-by of Pluto back in June, the first spacecraft to explore the dwarf planet. The set of two stamps, dubbed Pluto Explored, showcases the first close-ish photo of Pluto as well as the New Horizons probe itself. Have a look below.

I’m reasonably sure they cleared it. Unlike Walt Disney’s stamp, which had a generic parade of children because they couldn’t use characters, or Iowa’s quarter, which couldn’t use American Gothic. We need to change copyright law. If you want the taxpayers to provide legal protection to your intellectual property, you allow fair public use.